Donal Hickey: Let’s doff Cap to nature

It’s not that long since suggestions that farmers should devote part of their lands exclusively to nature would have been treated with utter disdain.

Under the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (Cap), the emphasis has been on maximum food production and payments to farmers, but the mood is changing. Scientists from all EU countries and beyond, including 58 experts from Ireland, have called for major changes in the Cap to reverse damage to the environment and to restore nature.

Traditionally, farmers have eyed environmentalists with suspicion. However, we have several examples of farmers and environmentalists working together, in the Bride Valley, Co Cork; the Burren, Co Clare, and Connemara, Co Galway, for instance. It’s called high nature value farming, and farmers get paid for the work they put in.

The scientists are proposing 10 urgent actions to reform the Cap after 2020 for long-term food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate mitigation, with farmers’ livelihoods central. They say that the Cap should stop funding destructive practices and significantly step up support for farmers’ transition to nature-friendly farming, including devoting at least 10% of all farmland area to natural habitats, such as hedgerows, wetlands or wildflower margins, and significant support for high nature value farming.

Since the 1970s, intensive, EU-supported farming has changed the landscape of rural Ireland with drainage and the widespread removal of ditches and hedgerows. This has worked against nature and wildlife and has led to a dramatic fall in numbers of farmland birds such as the corncrake, curlew, lapwing, barn owl, yellowhammer, and more.

The scientists’ statement comes at a crucial point and Birdwatch Ireland, pointing out that Dáil Éireann and the European Parliament last year declared a biodiversity, environmental and climate emergency, now must take action in their decision making.

“All of the environmental indicators that relate to agriculture in Ireland are going in the wrong direction,” said Oonagh Duggan, of Birdwatch, who called for action on three fronts to restore nature to farmland: Dedicated space for nature on farms and ramped-up support for high nature value farmers; money for nature protection, and a just transition to environmentally friendly farming.

Donal Sheehan, from Castlelyons, in the Bride Valley, recently received a National Dairy Council award for his work in environmentally-friendly farming. He is one of the main drivers of a new pilot project called The Bride (Biodiversity Regeneration In A Dairying Environment). He says farmers can make a huge difference in improving biodiversity, lowering their carbon footprint and improving the quality of our water. Farmers and environmentalists can be friends.